Niches nomore

I recently had one of those great “Idea” conversations with ThinManwhilst we were both watching the recent Robert Scoble Video Log about the Hewlett Packard Garage. Whilst I was batting around the concepts and thoughts behind the idea I “formed” a better understanding of what the Internet means to marketing of Niche markets and selling into them.

The Internet makes Niches irrelevant since your website and your product and your content can be promoted and located within the same areas and technologies as “larger” more established products and brands.

Okay so far so very Internet marketing 101 there is nothing new for an awful lot of people in this idea. If thats the case why then does it “feel” like the ideas and concepts of sales and marketing on the internet are still a “Niche” in their own right.

Some of my own clients are still focused on a single target of “getting people to their website” and as a result they focus on “keywords”, niche words if you will , which are designed to help their target audience to locate them on the internet by way of search engines. The whole prospect and delivery of this type of Web Development, design and implementation feels very much embedded in 1999.

Connectivity and conversations are increasing , almost exponentially, the crowds gather in far wider and far broader areas and are talking about ideas and products and memes ( just look at Bacn as an example ) such that the topic and ideas which relate to my clients products are now spread quite far and wide across Blogs, Forums, RSS Feeds and Lifestreams. Niches are becoming negligible and the economy of marketing into them is getting less everyday.

So here is a question for you. Is there a niche market youve met which wasnt accomodated online in some form of social media or social network? and I am excluding the Amish website.

2 Comments on “Niches nomore”

First, not everybody chooses to participate in social media. For example, if my mother wants to buy traditional Vietnamese art she’s going to go search Google or Ebay, not ThisNext.

Second, I fail to see how niche marketing and use of social media are an either/or proposition. If you have a product that appeals to a particular group of people, e.g. Buddhist parents of small children, social media allows your customers to interact with each other in a way not possible before. As a matter of fact, I believe that any niche business online ought to have a good social media strategy to make sure that positive customer feedback is propagated throughout the “socialsphere”.

Hi Susanna, thanks for reading and no I dont think you missed the point your comments seem to re-iterate and reflect my thoughts in a same argument different side of the coin fashion. I was trying to communicate how the internet makes things like marketing niche business easier and cheaper. But hey sometimes I say Apple and people hear fruit ! Thanks for the comment it was much appreciated and I hope this makes me a little clearer.